A chronicle of my experiences as a Peace Corps Community Organizational Development volunteer in Bulgaria.

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Baby, It's Cold Outside!

I got off the plane in Sofia on December 27th after having spent ten days visiting family and friends in New York City. Sofia is much like NY, only smaller. Oh, and colder. Ah, and a little more worn down. But, the public transportation does actually work in Sofia. The transit workers were on strike in NYC which seemed to be their way of saying "Merry Christmas" to the cabbies in the city. Not a single meter was turned on during the entire strike and the cabbies needed to hire cabs to carry home their take. The cab ride from the Sofia airport to the Centralna Bus Station runs about 7.50 leva if you don't get ripped off. It also helps, in Sofia and anywhere else, to know where you're going and which roads are acceptable. No, I do not want to just jog by the Rila Monastery on the way to the bus station!

It was snowing in cold wind-driven flurries when I arrived and I queued up in a short line for a cab . I threw my baggage in and asked the cabbie to take me to the bus station. Then I did the inexcusable in cab riding etiquette in any city in the world, I nodded off. I'd been traveling for over 20 hours at that point and the cab was warm and the radio was playing classical music and I'd just eaten a big meal on the plane and....I nodded off! When the cabbie woke me up at the bus station, it took me a moment to remember where and who I was. Oh yeah, I'm the guy who couldn't manage to fall asleep in a British Airways fully horizontal sleeper seat across the Atlantic but immediately dozed off in the back seat of a Bulgarian taxi with only one out of four serviceable shocks and an odor emanating from under my seat that could easily peel paint. Now I remember. More annoyed at myself than the driver I snapped, "Kolko?" to find out how much of his retirement I was about to fund. He said, "Sedem e pet decet". 7.50 leva, right on the button. And a very Merry Christmas to you, Tiny Dimitar! I gave him ten and wished him all the best for the Holidays. I've heard horror stories from friends and colleagues of cab rip-offs in Sofia, but, touch wood, I've always been lucky.

Back at home several hours later I was in the process of unpacking and unwinding when my phone rang. My sitemates were ringing to let me know that it was Matt's birthday. As I've mentioned previously, one is obligated to treat on one's birthday and this was my chance for a free dinner, so I hopped down to the Unigato Restaurant for pizza ala Matt. It was a fine way to get back into the swing of things here. I was really enjoying the evening when, apparently, I dozed off again. During some lapse in my attention my sitemates all agreed to have a New Year's Eve party at my place.

My original, if boring, plan for New Year's Eve was to make myself dinner, have a glass of Stoil's homemade red wine, then have a glass of his homemade rakiya with a good cigar while standing on my balcony watching the fireworks. I had no intention of going out to any New Year's Eve parties. However, the party came to me and it was a great night. Alex brought dinner and Jennifer, Jessie brought champagne and cards for two card games she wanted to play and Matt brought his famous 'blackies'. Those are brownies that he scorches while baking them until they are almost impossible to dent with human teeth. Proving that PCVs will eat anything as long as it's free, we even finished off the crumbs which resembled chocolate flavored gravel much more than food. Alex cooked a delicious chicken curry dinner in my kitchen, we all drank Stoil's wine and rakiya, we played two card games whose rules seemed to change each time I drew anything that might win and, finally, at midnight we went onto the balcony to watch the fireworks.

During the eighteen months I've lived here, the Municipality has set off fireworks displays from the roof of their building to celebrate various public holidays. My balcony affords an unsurpassed view of these displays and I was certain that the New Year's Eve show would be truly memorable. Well, it was a memorable show all right. The Municipality's fireworks were okay. They only lasted about ten minutes and lacked a grand finale. They came and went, however, lost in the firestorm of the Mother of All Private Fireworks displays! I'm not sure whether the national sport of Bulgaria is soccer or rakiya making but next in line is outdoing your neighbor in the home explosives department. From balconies, terraces, yards, street corners and parking lots across Stara Zagora they began. Following an initial salvo of small Chinese firecrackers on a string, the volume and frequency of explosions increased and grew until the night skies over SZ reminded me of the tv pictures of the night bombing of Baghdad. New Year's Eve in Stara Zagora was indeed like Baghdad in the Balkans. The period of heaviest intensity lasted almost an hour and the gunpowder and cordite were so thick in the air that you could still taste them the next day. Interspersed amongst the explosions were the sounds of ambulances racing here and there to put someone out who had accidentally set fire to himself or to recover one minor body part or another that had accidentally been separated from its owner. I would seriously suggest amending the Bill of Rights to allow the possession of weapons grade fireworks by anyone with enough rakiya in them to light the damn things! By the way, the two card games were Asshole and Bullshit and if you know what the rules are, please tell me because my sitemates have the scruples and principles of cab drivers when it comes to cheating at cards.

Now we're well into the new year and for the B16s (I am a B16) we're on the homestretch. We have until October to complete our two years and three months in Bulgaria and then we'll become RPCVs. I was talking with some other volunteers about project ideas that might take me up to my COS date and was asked by the volunteer in Kazanluk if I'd be interested in doing a documentary film. We are beginning to explore the idea of creating a documentary about the Decade of Roma Inclusion in Bulgaria. Eight European countries have begun to implement an action plan to very deliberately ensure the integration of their Roma minorities into their mainstream societies. Because this will deal with discrimination, segregation and prejudices, we have to determine whether we can frame it in a positive light. I think it will work if we focus on the good intentions of the national plan and the very positive benefits to all involved if it succeeds. So this might be my sayonara project.

SZ is in the lee of the Sredna Goras and is, therefore, spared the very worst of the Winter weather in Bulgaria. I guess I've gotten spoiled because it's gotten cold this month and I find myself complaining. I complain to my colleagues, to my sitemates, to waitresses and checkout girls at the market, to cab drivers and unfortunate strangers who happen to be stopped at the same traffic light as me and now, I complain to you. It's cold outside. It's also cold inside. My little radiator is like the small engine that could, only it can't! It heats one room in my apartment but 'heats' is a relative term used only in comparison with the other completely unheated rooms. In the morning I often find ice on the floor of my bathroom, but it melts under the hot water of my shower. I get dressed in the morning in unheated rooms by putting on clothing that is stiff with cold. Try leaving your clothing in your freezer overnight someday to get a feel for the meaning of the word "refreshing" in the morning. But the cold doesn't last for long here in SZ and I want to take advantage of every possible opportunity to whine.

Now I've got to bundle up and take my camera out to film, uh, people and, uh, things about, uh, you know, like Roma and stuff. Michael Moore, step aside.
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